First there's the special election over in Georgia State Senate District 30 with Libertarian James Camp carrying the banner of Liberty. Now we have Libertarian Jeff Bivins jumping into the special election for Georgia Senate District 11 way down south near the Florida/Ala-damn-bama line.

All of this activity has been prompted by an unusual flurry of republican discontent and/or medical/family issues that have caused three duly elected republican office holders to bail out of the legislature. Two of 'em are headed towards greener full time employment pastures in state government courtesy of Governor Deal.

The end result is that the Libertarian Party of Georgia has two candidates qualified and running for State Senate seats in the affected districts. I also note that the other part of our fair states two party duopoly that has unrestricted ballot access, you know, the democrats, have failed to find anybody willing to run in either district 11 or district 30. Shouldn't they lose their "real political party" card over that?

There's still one day left in the qualifying process so there may be a surprise or two tomorrow but I kinda doubt it. The big news of the day is that the Libertarian Party of Georgia has two, count 'em, two State Senate candidates running for office.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

I've been a bit of a lay-about for the last 30 days or so but break time is over.

Biggest news of the last two days is the run off victory of republican Mike Dugan over republican Bill Hembree way out there in Georgia State Senate District 30. The expectation was that veteran politician Bill Hembree would get the nod and face off against Libertarian James Camp in the actual election on 8 JAN 2013. So much for conventional wisdom.

Now the hard work starts for James Camp.

While Dugan is not an entrenched republican incumbent, he will have access to resources that James Camp is gonna have a hard time matching. Sooner or later the rest of Georgia's media will catch on the fact that this special election for the Georgia Senate is going to determine whether or not we all get blessed with a republican super-majority down at the capitol. Sooner or later the voters of Georgia Senate District 30 will realize they get to call the shot on this. And it probably won't take all that many of them to determine if we run lemming like into republican state government that won't say no, or pause and and take a moment to consider.

The differences in participation rates between the 6 NOV 12 general election and the results of the republican run off yesterday are staggering. Going from a 70% general election participation rate to a 6.9% run off participation rate for yesterdays contest really helps illustrate how valuable a vote becomes in the rare and exotic land of run offs. A vote on 8 JAN 2013 is worth 10 votes from 6 NOV 2012. A great return for tapping a touch screen.

If you're one of the 19,000 Douglas county citizens, the 10,000 Carroll county citizens or one of the 15,000 Paulding county citizens that voted for either Libertarian Brad Ploeger or Libertarian David Staples for PSC last November then you really should consider hitting the polls and voting for Libertarian James Camp in the special election. Not all of those guys and gals will get to vote in the special election, but if only half of them take the time and make the effort, that's probably close to victory for James Camp.